Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) thinks Congress could learn a lot from nationally known Christian financial adviser and radio host Dave Ramsey on how to manage the trillions of taxpayer dollars that flow into the U.S. Treasury every year.

Marshall told The Washington Stand in a recent interview that he first became familiar with Ramsey’s approach because his church back home in Kansas offered Ramsey’s financial planning program to young couples in the congregation.

“A lot of your readers know Dave Ramsey. In our church, twice a year we would offer the Dave Ramsey course, especially try to bring in young married couples, they were kind of the target audience,” Marshall explained. “As I recall from his books, the first thing you do is cut up your credit cards, and the second thing is make a budget. The federal government has not completed a budget and got through the appropriation process on time since 1997.”

“You know, our Kansas City Chiefs have won three Super Bowls and our Kansas City Royals a couple of World Series title since then. It’s impossible, I think, to get to a balanced budget unless we make a budget. But we always just jump right into the spending the way many young couples start off; they do the spending, but they skip the budgeting process.”

Marshall, who served two terms in the House of Representative before Kansas voters sent him to the Senate in 2020, said he became so frustrated with this reality that a year ago he and his staff set out to develop a comprehensive reform of the congressional budgeting process.

That Congress desperately needs to change how it spends the taxpayers’ money is evident from the fact the nation has run up nearly $36 trillion in debt, thanks to year after year spending more than the U.S. Treasury receives from taxes, tariffs, and other financial levies.

The last year the federal budget was balanced was 2001, as Bill Clinton was leaving the White House and George W. Bush was entering it. Every year, Congress is required to process 12 measures, with each covering major segments of federal spending. There are 2,400 separate line-items in the dozen spending bills.

As Marshall was talking to TWS on the Senate side of Capitol Hill on June 24, the Economic Policy Innovation Center’s (EPIC) Matthew Dickerson was testifying on the federal spending crisis on the other side before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Accountability’s DOGE subcommittee.

“Spending will continue to grow well beyond historical norms under the current trajectory. By fiscal year 2033, spending would exceed $10 trillion, more than 24% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Over the next decade, almost $22 trillion will be added to the deficit. Under the Biden administration, spending skyrocketed and is now about 52% higher than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dickerson testified. He is EPIC’s Director of Budget Policy.

Figures like those shared by Dickerson point to the urgency of fixing the congressional budget process, which is why Marshall introduced his Budget Reform Act of 2025 a few days earlier.

“With the U.S. national debt exceeding $36 trillion, it’s clear that the federal budgeting process is a dysfunctional mess. Congress continues to lurch from crisis to crisis without any long-term vision or accountability. Rather than continue to repeat the same missteps that have burdened us and our grandchildren with debt they can never repay, we need radical change,” Marshall said in a June 17 statement.

“My Budget Reform Act provides the framework for returning America to sound fiscal footing,” he continued. “These fundamental changes will hold the President, Congress, and federal agencies accountable, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent appropriately and transparently.”

“However, if this carrot approach doesn’t work, my bill provides penalties for all budgetary actors to ensure their compliance,” Marshall added. “At a minimum, this is what the American people deserve. It’s beyond time for a fix; it’s time for the Budget Reform Act of 2025.”

Among the most important provisions of his proposal, Marshall explains, are these:

• Transparency from the CBO: Requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to publish its fiscal models and methodology, allowing public scrutiny and a better understanding of budget forecasts.
• Zero-Based Budgeting: Mandates that every federal program, exempting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, be justified from scratch for each new budget period, rather than using prior year funding as a baseline.
• Biennial Budgeting: Moves from annual to two-year budget cycles, giving agencies, states, and local governments greater predictability and reducing short-term political disruptions.
• Stronger Budget Enforcement: Reinforces points of order in Congress to ensure adherence to the proper budgetary process.
• Revised CBO Baselines: Adjusts the way the CBO calculates budget baselines to remove bias toward automatic spending increases.
• Enforced Deadlines: Establishes strict budget deadlines for Congress and the president, with penalties for non-compliance to encourage timely fiscal action.

A unique provision that stands out in Marshall’s proposal provides penalties for both the president and Congress if either fails to meet deadlines for submitting documents required in the new two-year budgeting process.

If the chief executive misses a deadline, he and his political appointees in the executive branch would not be allowed to take taxpayer-funded trips until the needed documentation is submitted. Similarly, if Congress misses a deadline, senators and representatives would be barred from taxpayer-funded travel.